{review} Outpost by Adam Baker

Outpost

Adam Baker

Published 2011 by Hodder & Stoughton

Because I'm such a cynical bitch that would prefer the solitude of a cabin in the woods to having to deal with most people in the general population of the world, an aspect of this book really appealed to me.  Namely, the setting.  A remote oil rig in the middle of the Arctic?  My therapist will have a field day with this, but that sounds like freakin' heaven to me.  Throw in an apocalypse factor, and there's no place I'd rather spend my final days.

Or my life in general.

I had one problem with this book .. well, two, actually.  One - it was less "zombie apocalypse" and more "ET is causing shit, and for reasons we'll never know" apocalypse.  Call me weird (I've been called much, much worse), but I find zombies much more believable, and enjoyable, than ET.

The second issue - I couldn't put in to words what I was feeling about this book, other than wishing I lived on aforementioned remote oil rig and not next to the neighbours that hate me.

So I did what every spoiled brat would do -  I had my dad do the review for me.  Enjoy!

I finally finished Outpost, and what a sad little book it is.

Not sad because it's the end of civilization, that's sad too, of
course, but sad because as an apocolyptic sci-fi adventure, it had
SUCH potential.

It's sort of like Michael Crichton meets Stephen King, unfortunately,
they were both having an off day.

The tale involves a group of people marooned on an enormous isolated
arctic drilling rig when reports come in that the world is being
overrun by a bizarre plague, one where metal elements of unknown
origin take over their bodies and stick out of their skin like
porcupine quills.

These don't do anything for the thought processes either, of course,
so they turn into defacto flesh eating metal infused zombies. (How
come the monsters are never vegetarians? Just wondering.)

There was so much potential to turn this story into an end of
civilaztion morality play, or an alien revenge adventure,
unfortunately the author missed every opportunity.

And after wading through 400 pages to find out what happened here, I
never did.  It's like the author said "Oh, I have to go cut the grass
now, I guess the book's done."

The basic rules of journalism, or any form of storytelling, are "who -
what - when - where - why"

Well we have the who, when, and where.  Now we need the author to come
back and give us the what and why.

I won't hold my breath waiting.

What a waste of a good story.  If Michael Crichton or Stephen King had
written this it'd be a major motion picture this summer.